


forever and a day

by laireshi



Category: Marvel 616, X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Earth-TRN193, M/M, X-Factor #231
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>No more humans</i>, he thinks, crossing another name off the list. It's getting depressingly short.</p><p>He doesn't know what happened. No one does. Only that their friends are either dead or not their friends any more, and it's the only sentence that explains everything … apart from how it doesn't explain anything at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forever and a day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightwalker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/gifts).



> nightwalker - it's basically your fault this fic even exists ;) Thank you.
> 
> I've read X-Factor #231 and I needed more. I needed to learn what happened to change Tony like that. This fic is my answer.  
> Basically, it's a Steve/Tony backstory to that issue.
> 
> Thanks, missbecky, for looking at it ;)

_No more humans_ , he thinks, crossing another name off the list. It's getting depressingly short.

He doesn't know what happened. No one does. Only that their friends are either dead or not their friends anymore, and it's the only sentence that explains everything … apart from how it doesn't explain anything at all.

It was a simple mission in space. A week off the planet, and how much could possibly have changed then?

A whole fucking lot, it turned out.

The mansion is gone. The tower wasn't really ready to move in, but he didn't exactly have a choice. It has good defence mechanisms. Enough to warn off all the new superhumans with one thought in their minds.

Carol was in space with him and hasn't been affected, too. Whoever they met so far … Tony does his best not to think of it. But he knows there are other people, still fully human, there must be, and they have to find them.

Sensors alert him to someone approaching and he looks out of the window, sees Carol, and lets her in. She at least isn't attacked on sight by the monster almost everyone turned into. She's not fully human, not like he is, and they know it somehow.

“Jess is gone,” she says. Her voice doesn't waver. He doesn't ask what she means. Dead or changed, it doesn't matter to them, one option worse than the other. He crosses her name off too and wonders if she'd accept a hug now before he realises Carol wants to say something else and is hesitating, so unlike her.

He knows what it means. He's afraid to ask, but he does anyway.

“Steve…?”

She bites her lip. Funny. She still wants to spare him a heartbreak. He closes his eyes briefly and moves to cross him off too.

“Stop,” Carol says. “He's – I think he's changing. But he hasn't yet. Not fully. I … it's as if he's fighting it.”

Hope is a terrible thing.

 

* * *

 

He meets Steve.

Or rather, he meets a man who's dying. A man who's human still and whose body is fighting against him every time he breathes.

He meets the man he loves, and kisses him, and gets shoved away, because of course, he forgot, he's not 'Tony' now, he's 'a human', and Steve might be more like himself than the others Tony met, but he's been affected too. Tony takes a deep breath and doesn't say anything, and proceeds to scan Steve in details, to learn what's wrong, to learn how to fix it.

His priorities are all in place, so he focuses on Steve, and leaves finding the other humans to Carol. He feels guilty, but … She couldn't help Steve, and Steve, well.

Steve stays with him.

Some days are good, like before; Tony looks up from his calculations and Steve smiles at him, and they kiss and make love and promise each other safety, forever and all the other lies.

At some days, Tony wakes up to see Steve holding his shield over his neck. He knows Steve won't bring it down, but it's enough.

He knows he should, but he doesn't ask Steve to leave and Steve never offers. Tony tells himself he trusts him still, but he starts building protocols for recognizing humans and planning shelters for the survivors, and he encrypts the files and closes all the relevant windows on his computer when he thinks Steve's looking.

He works on fixing Steve and finds out it was a – spell? Charm? – fucking magic, of course. It'd be easier if Wanda was anywhere to be found, to explain it to Tony and pretend she wasn't amused by his distaste, or maybe it'd be even worse than it is. He learns that Steve's bones are slowly decaying and every time he touches his shield, putting it away is that much harder for him, as his flesh longs to be one with it.

Tony thinks of his armour, and cybernetic controls, and builds a suit for Steve that'll become his new body.

He adds holographic shields to both wrist panels and doesn't equip them with weapons.

He reminds himself he still trusts Steve and laughs at the lie. Steve doesn't even argue when Tony tells him his plans. The old Steve never let him build him even a simple protective armour.

 _The old Steve_. Tony hates himself as soon as he thinks the words.

One night he connects the right gauntlet to Steve's body and holds him tight afterwards. Steve doesn't react really, but he flexes his new metal fingers and smiles a smile that's not his own.

In the morning Tony wakes up in Steve's embrace, his new hand resting over Tony's heart, and he feels safe, and wonders, for how long.

The next night Steve catches him by his throat and almost strangles him, and Tony's left coughing on the floor, desperately trying to catch his breath, and trying not to think of what Steve's going to do with the force Tony granted him. He knows Steve hasn't left really. Not yet. He's just standing out on the balcony, wondering what's happening to him, and Tony can't help him without making it worse.

Maybe leaving him alone to die would have been kindness. Too late for that, and Tony'd never try anyway, not even knowing what he does now.

He looks at the bottle he's been hiding in the kitchen, shakes his head and pours himself a drink. He tells himself it's better than jumping off the roof.

Steve returns in the morning and apologizes, and doesn't say anything about how Tony's drinking whiskey for breakfast, and that's when Tony knows things will never be as they used to be.

He swallows another gulp of whiskey – it's good alcohol, of course, and he's never quite forgotten the taste, but the sensation of it on his tongue is thrilling all the same, and looks at Steve.

“I have to fix your other hand,” he says, “darling.” His voice doesn't break, but he knows the time is coming that one of them will have to kill the other.

But he won't go into that battle without healing Steve first. It's stupid of him, but he still hopes that Steve will remain himself when his body stops dying.

Steve approaches him and kisses him, and doesn't say anything about how Tony must taste like alcohol, and pushes him roughly against a wall; and it's fast and almost violent, but Tony kisses him back just as hard, stabs his fingernails into his back, and if both of them are shaking, no one will say.

Tony fixes Steve's other hand. He's stupidly grateful to Carol for leaving them alone for so long when he pushes the last part in place. Steve screams – Tony knows it hurts, but he couldn't have done anything about it – as the connections shot in place, and then he's up, and has Tony by his collar, and Tony looks him straight in the eyes.

“Finish it, Steve,” he says, because they were always going to end like that, and he knows perfectly well he won't be able to kill him.

Steve stumbles back and falls to his knees. “No more humans,” he says, and it sounds like an apology.

“I know, Steve. And I am a human, so, go on.”

Steve shakes his head.

“I won't kill you, Tony.”

“Not now, you mean.”

“I can fight it.”

Tony wants to believe him. He wants nothing else. So he nods. This night they kiss, and then Steve activates the shield millimetres from Tony's neck, and freezes for a long moment. He snaps out of it without a word from Tony and backs off. Tony swallows whiskey straight from the bottle and smiles without an inch of happiness.

“One of us is gonna kill the other, whether we want it or not,” he notices. He's got all the data. He has for a long time.

“I don't want to harm you,” Steve says and it's clear he wants to believe in it. “I …”

“I know.” And he does. But it doesn't change anything. “But I won't kill you, Steve. Not even if you ask me to.” He knows Steve's been thinking of it. He's not blind.

Something flashes in Steve's eyes. “No more humans, Tony,” he says not in his own voice.

“Yeah, heard that before,” Tony quips and calls his armour.

Steve puts a fist into the wall as the suit assembles around Tony. “Fuck.”

“I'm sorry, Steve. I thought – I thought I could help you,” he says and is grateful for the voice filters in his helmet.

“You did save my life.”

They look at each other and Tony doesn't call Steve on his obvious lie.

“I love you too, you know. Let's not meet again.” Tony sends his armour away. Steve looks at him for a long while, before jumping out of the window. Tony doesn't look, but he knows he landed safely. His enhancements were better than that.

He tells himself he doesn't care and takes another swallow of alcohol.

He throws himself into building a city in which humans could feel safe instead. It's the least he can do, now, since he wasn't here to stop whatever happened in the first place.

It takes him ten years, but he learns how to fight Steve, in the end.


End file.
